Emotional Eating with Diabetes – Book Review

I recently had the distinct pleasure of reading a new book by Ginger Vieira, Emotional Eating with Diabetes. This 50-page book, published in December, is available at Amazon and her website, walks you through the steps to acknowledge your emotional issues surrounding food and ways that you can conquer those issues.

Let’s face it, we all have issues with food whether we have diabetes or not. Having diabetes just makes it all more difficult. When attempting to make positive changes revolving around food, we’re often faced with a lot of “don’t do this” and “you can’t do that”…therefore it was refreshing to read a book that focuses on the positive side of food; the “yes, you cans” and the fact that we have choices. So many rules and lectures!

Consequently: we often look upon food as evil; something that haunts us and taunts us and is determined to ruin our good intentions. Ginger wants us to reach a point in how we perceive food where “all food is just food” helps eventually prevent binge-eating and abusing food simply to escape the rules of diabetes.

She writes, “A healthy relationship with food is about feeling proud of your choices, whether you choose carrots or ice cream.”

She also emphasizes throughout several chapters that a positive relationship with food is about reminding ourselves that no one can control how we eat. As Ginger says, “I can, if I choose to, eat any type of food that I want to eat. No one can stop me.” Heck, yeah! She goes on to explain that by purposefully planning treats in our daily food plan, in moderation and with our prescribed medications, we can remove the guilt that often comes with eating those foods.

If you turn to food when you’re depressed or stressed or tired that can tell you that you do, indeed, have an unhealthy relationship with food. Ginger’s book outlines ways to identify our issues with food and nudges us to think of healthier ways to deal with the problems in our lives, without turning to food, by first truly acknowledging what those emotions are.

Chapter topics include:

habits that lead to overeating

over-treating low blood sugars

rules around food that do more harm than good

using food to hide your emotions

developing a nutrition plan that doesn’t deprive you

learning to acknowledge small steps of progress

Many of the tips focus on people who use insulin in their treatment of diabetes (T1s and some T2s), but the underlying theories will work for anyone. It’s important that all of us, regardless of diabetes type, weight or food plan, find a healthy relationship with food. This book is an easy-to-read guidebook that helps you on that journey. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has diabetes and issues with food. Hmmm, I guess that means I would recommend this book to all of you!

Kate was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in June of 2005. She blogs about her journey at Sweet Success: My Life with Type 2 Diabetes and participates in the Diabetes Online Community via FaceBook and Twitter (@SweetenedKate). She also contributes to the collaborative type 2 blog at The Type 2 Experience and writes articles for DiabeticConnect. Kate lives her too-sweet life in northern Arizona with her husband.